


Living Wake

by autopilots77



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:48:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autopilots77/pseuds/autopilots77
Summary: The car smells like cigarettes and sex.She gets a whiff of it in the moments before her tears make her nose too stuffy to smell anything. She wipes the blurriness from her eyes and tries to help Archie lay him down in the backseat, minding the ribs that are most definitely bruised.





	Living Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. I'm sorry I've been absent. Things are rough, and I'm in a weird place. I'm not sure what this is - it's the result of coming up with the first two paragraphs about a month ago and then finishing it tonight in a wild drunken whirlwind. Hope it's okay <3

The car smells like cigarettes and sex.

She gets a whiff of it in the moments before her tears make her nose too stuffy to smell anything. She wipes the blurriness from her eyes and tries to help Archie lay him down in the backseat, minding the ribs that are most definitely bruised.

They make Jughead as comfortable as possible; she stays in the back with him while Archie clambers into the driver’s seat. His hands shake, and she can hear the keys rattling as he tries to get them in the ignition.

They don’t know whose car it is. The keys hung innocently from a nail in the foyer, disturbingly normal amongst the horror of the place they found him in. When the car finally roars to life, she feels herself crashing.

His head is resting in her lap, and she feels as though she should do something comforting – run her fingers through his hair, hold his hand – but she is so terrified she cannot bring herself to touch him for fear of shattering his very being.

Of all the shit this car may have seen, she is sure that it has never seen this.

There is blood everywhere. It soaks through her jeans and stains her hands. His skin is pure white against the terrifying red of his blood on her hands, getting on his face as she tries to brush his greasy hair away from his eyes.

She wonders how anyone can be so pale - his skin is nearing on translucent, veins standing out in stark contrast to the paleness. And it’s only now that she’s struck by his sunken cheeks, by the bags under his eyes, by the ribs just slightly too prominent under his baggy clothing. How could they have missed this?

Not the obviousness of his capture, but the rapid declination of his mental state? How could she call herself his friend after this?

He wavers somewhere between confusion and complete unconsciousness during the drive to the hospital. She tries her hardest to stifle her tears and comfort him in the moments he is awake. He is terrified, convinced he is still in the hands of his captors and petrified of where they are taking him.

He doesn’t recognize her in these moments, struggling against her hold, but struggling so weakly that it breaks her heart break more than anything. She ignores the fear in his voice, keeping her hands on his face, attempting to calm him, and simply accepts the sting of his short nails as he scratches at her hands that try to comfort him.

She wants nothing more than to wrap him up in her arms as though the tightness could save him, could glue all of the shattered bits back together again. But she can’t. She can’t. He’s too terrified, delirious, afraid that she will hurt him like they hurt him.

She doesn’t know what happened to him, wonders if he’ll even tell her. Adding this to the already astronomically long list of shit that he’s had to go through just seems to be a cruel joke.

The drive passes by quickly, despite how far away they are from the hospital. Before she knows it, Archie pulls up in front of the ER entrance and jets out of the driver’s seat to help her with him. It doesn’t take long for the staff to intercept them with a gurney and what feels like the entire nursing and doctoral staff.

They are a small town after all, and she’s never been more grateful.

She gets one last look at him before he is whisked away and she and Archie are ushered to the front desk to fill out paperwork and begin their painfully long wait. He is unconscious, the mayhem of traveling having exhausted whatever little energy he had left. Even in sleep, his face is traced with lines of worry, of pain, and she wonders when she will ever see him smile again.

God, she’s so fucking tired.


End file.
